There has been much press coverage about how the Saleh regime in Yemen is facing important security challenges.

There is the Houthi rebellion in the north of the country which has been going on since 2004 (see a brief, excellent analysis by Gregory Johnsen). There is the growing movement to restore the independence of South Yemen (which April Longley Alley and Abdul Ghani al-Iryani have written about). And there is an Al Qaeda presence in Yemen which has been widely reported on, though it appears (as Johnsen has pointed out) to be far less of a threat to the Saleh regime than either the Houthis or the southern secessionists.

A fourth threat is one that Alley pointed out in her 2008 Georgetown University Ph.D. dissertation, “Shifting Light in the Qamariyya: The Reinvention of Patronage Networks in Contemporary Yemen”: the fracturing of the alliance between the Saleh clan on the one hand and the Al Ahmar clan on the other. Abdallah Al Ahmar, chief sheikh of the Hashid, helped Saleh come to power in 1978, and strongly supported Saleh for almost three decades thereafter. With Saleh increasingly working to ensure that the presidency is transferred to his own son, Ahmad, President Saleh has, as Alley pointed out, increasingly marginalized Abdallah’s son, Hamid—who retaliated by actively supporting Saleh’s electoral rival in 2006 (see Chapter V of her dissertation). Sheikh Abdallah again sided with Saleh on this occasion, but his passing away at the end of 2007 means that he is no longer present to manage the rivalry between his sons and nephews on the one hand and Saleh and his kin on the other with regard to the succession or any other issue. Needless to say, a growing rift within the ranks of the regime’s top elite will not help it in dealing with security challenges from opposition forces.

There is also an international dimension to the crises in Yemen. As has been widely reported recently, Saudi forces have joined the fight against Houthi rebels near the Saudi-Yemeni border. Riyadh is helping Saleh in this instance, but it must not be forgotten that Saudi-Yemeni relations have often been tense. Under Saleh, tension arose between the two governments when Sanaa sided with Saddam Hussein during the 1990-91 Gulf crisis and when Riyadh sided with the southern secessionists in the 1994 Yemeni civil war (which Saleh’s forces won). Saudi-Yemeni relations have improved greatly since the two governments signed a border agreement in 2000. If, however, Riyadh concludes that Yemen is fracturing, it will undoubtedly seek allies to support there—perhaps including the southern secessionists whom they backed over a decade ago.

Recent Yemeni government statements that Iran has been helping the Houthis have raised alarm in many quarters. The Houthis are indeed Shi’ites, but belong to the Zaidi sect and not the Twelver sect predominant in Iran (indeed, the two sects have historically been rivals). Many Western sources (including the Washington Post) have mistakenly portrayed the Houthi conflict as a Shi’ite rebellion against a Sunni government. But as Johnsen pointed out, “Saleh and numerous other leading figures of contemporary Yemen are of Zaidi origin.” Iran has denied that it is involved in this struggle, and the Houthis have declared that the Saleh government is falsely claiming that Tehran is supporting them in order to get support from America, Saudi Arabia, and other GCC countries for himself. As Johnsen further noted, the Yemeni government “has yet to provide any firm evidence of direct Iranian support.” Indeed, up until October 2009, Yemeni-Iranian relations appeared to be quite good. Even since then, Tehran has called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict, warning outside powers to stay out.

The Saudis, though, insist that Iran is involved. It is not clear whether they really believe this or are simply going along with Yemeni government claims in order to obtain a larger role inside Yemen—something that Sanaa has traditionally resisted, but now appears to welcome. Interestingly, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader Muhammad Abd al-Rahman al-Rashid also recently claimed (on Al Jazeera, November 10) that “Persian Iran” is supporting the Houthis (among others).

As with previous conflicts within and between the two Yemens before unification in 1990 and the 1994 civil war, the current conflicts inside Yemen have local causes. But as with previous conflicts, these Yemeni conflicts have international ramifications and could draw in other actors. Saudi Arabia is already involved. If Iran is not yet involved, it could be. The same is true, of course, for the United States.

So what are the goals of the various protagonists in Yemen?

The Houthis want to restore the Zaidi Imamate that ruled North Yemen between the departure of the Ottomans at the end of the First World War and the 1962 North Yemeni “revolution.” Presumably, they also want to rule over South Yemen—which, though ruled by the British until 1967, was claimed by the Imamate. The South, though, is overwhelmingly Sunni. If anything, the Southerners have even less desire to be ruled by a Shi’a Imamate in Sanaa than by the Saleh regime.

Al Qaeda does not appear strong enough to come to power in Yemen, but it may be satisfied with a chronic state of conflict there that provides it with maximum freedom to launch attacks against Saudi Arabia and other countries.

The Al Ahmars may see the growth of any or all of these opposition movements as further proof (as if they needed it) that the Saleh regime can no longer govern Yemen effectively, and to use their considerable resources to displace it. Saleh and his kin, of course, simply want to suppress all opposition and remain in power.

And what are the possible outcomes to the current conflicts?

One is that the Houthis take power in the North and the secessionists restore the independence of the South. This would lead to a situation somewhat similar to the 1967-90 period when there were two Yemeni states. As then, the two are likely to have hostile relations and to seek external assistance from rival great powers (or even not so great powers) against each other.

Another is that Yemen will descend into chaos, with none of the various actors strong enough to defeat all the others nor weak enough to be completely defeated either. In this scenario, all the various Yemeni protagonists are likely to seek external assistance. And to a greater or lesser degree, all might receive it.

A variation on this theme is that Yemen will come to resemble Somalia—another country which was previously divided, then united, but then became divided again. As in Somalia, the more populous region (the South in Somalia; the North in Yemen) could descend into a prolonged state of chaos while the formerly British-ruled portion (the North in Somalia; the South in Yemen) could emerge as a relatively coherent—albeit impoverished—state. Unlike Somaliland (North Somalia), which the West has largely shunned in deference to the African Union, Saudi Arabia and Oman might well recognize a re-emergent South Yemen (or South Arabia, as the British referred to it), thus easing the way for the West and other Arab states to do so.

Or, the Al Ahmars might overthrow the Salehs and establish a more effective regime that inspires popular support, peacefully resolves the conflict with the Houthis (who have a very personal grudge against Saleh), defuses the southern secessionist movement by fostering both autonomy and democracy, and cooperates with America, Saudi Arabia, and others against Al Qaeda. (The Al Ahmars, of course, could manage to oust the Salehs, but not succeed in some or all of these other tasks.)

Finally—and seemingly against all odds—Saleh might prevail over his adversaries. He has, after all, a track record of doing just this through a combination of co-opting many while at the same time playing them off against each other, and enlisting allies (both foreign and domestic) to isolate and defeat still others. Saleh has always played a poor hand well. The example of Syria also shows that it is possible for a father to successfully transfer power to a son in an Arab republic. But as the prospectuses of mutual funds warn: past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Whatever its future, the period ahead for Yemen is likely to be, to paraphrase Hobbes, “nasty and brutish.” This nasty and brutish period, though, is not likely to be short.

Saudi Arabia is once again sailing in dangerous waters as it increases its military involvement in Yemen. The recent New York Times article on the subject is welcome, because the growing violence in Yemen is perhaps the most neglected news story in the Middle East.

Yemen is racked by no less than three distinct sources of violence, beyond the traditional tribal uprisings that have always wracked the country. The “Houthi” rebellion involves Zaydi Shi’a in the northwestern part of the country near the Saudi border. Also in revolt are some disgruntled southerners, bitter at their steady loss of power since north and south Yemen unified in 1990, and also at their loss in the 1994 civil war. Yemen is also home to many jihadists tied to Al Qaeda of the Arabian peninsula. They have shown up in Iraq and elsewhere, and are increasingly active in Yemen itself and in Saudi Arabia. Yemen was always loosely governed, but the levels of violence are high even by a historical standard. The various rebels do not work together, and their agendas are not harmonious. But together they weaken the state and stretch Yemen’s military forces.

Much of the attention is on the Iran-Saudi competition in Yemen, as the New York Times story notes, because the Houthi rebels are Shi’a. However, their Zaydi interpretation of Shiism is different than the Twelver Shiism of Iran, and the two communities historically have not been close. For now, Iran’s support seems limited at best. (Despite Yemeni government claims to the contrary, I have not seen a credible account of serious Iranian backing, though given the dearth of reporting on this topic that omission is less meaningful than it might otherwise be.)

Saudi Arabia, however, feels it has more at stake in Yemen than just Iran. Riyadh has always felt a proprietary interest in the tribes in the northwest, particularly as some of them straddle the Yemen-Saudi border. Drugs and weapons also come to the Kingdom from Yemen. The Saudis, moreover, have also always felt that they should be the dominant power in Yemen, and for decades have meddled extensively in the country’s domestic politics. (One policymaker I know compared the Saudis’ obsession with Yemen to the U.S. concern over Cuba.)

The danger, however, is that growing military involvement will create political problems for the Saudis and strengthen the insurgents. The Houthis are not likely to suffer more than a minor tactical setback from Saudi Arabia’s military effort (more threatening to the insurgents would be Saudi efforts to patrol the border and stop smuggling). Moreover, the violence seems to be creating some sympathy for the rebels in Iran. Perhaps most important, Yemenis agree on little in general, but there is a strong resentment of Saudi meddling. Saudi intervention delegitimizes the Yemeni government further and may create more support for the rebels.

Even as the West seeks to engage Iran in negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, Iran continues to arm rogue regimes and terrorist groups in blatant violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1747. Such aggressive behavior on the part of Iran in support of terrorist groups and rogue regimes highlights a critical shortcoming of current international sanctions on Iran. In the latest case, last week, the Israeli Navy intercepted the Francop, a vessel carrying five hundred tons of weapons, including thousands of mortar shells and long range rockets believed to be bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israeli officials released photographs of Katyusha rockets seized last week by UNIFIL forces in Lebanon that are the same make as those seized on board the Francop. According to U.S. officials, the arms shipment was “clearly manifested from Iran to Syria” in violation of a March 2007 UN arms embargo and provides “unambiguous evidence of the destabilizing proliferation of arms in the region.”

It is high time to back up the tough talk with action. The good news is that there are ways to effectively disrupt Iran’s international weapons smuggling. The question is whether the Francop episode will provide the political impetus for the international community to take action. Previous cases of Iranian arms smuggling prompted no such action.

Indeed, the Francop is just the most recent Iranian violation of UNSCR 1747’s ban on Iranian weapons trafficking. In January, the U.S. Navy stopped another vessel, the Monchegorsk, while it was transiting the Red Sea en route to Syria with components for mortars and thousands of cases of powder, propellant, and shell casings for 125mm and 130mm guns. The Monchegorsk was chartered by Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) which, just four months earlier, the Treasury Department blacklisted for its proliferation activities, noting that IRISL “facilitates the transport of cargo for UN designated proliferators” and also “falsifies documents and uses deceptive schemes to shroud its involvement in illicit commerce.”

In recent years, a number of similar incidents exposed Iranian efforts to transport military materiel and arms by sea, land, and air to allies and surrogates. During the second Palestinian Intifada, Iran helped facilitate arms shipments to Gaza through Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to Gaza (by means of floating waterproof containers) by using two civilian vessels, the Santorini, seized by Israel in May 2001, and the Calypso 2. In January 2002, Iran attempted to deliver fifty tons of weapons to the Palestinian Authority aboard the Karine A, whose shipment was seized by the Israeli Navy in the Red Sea.

During the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war, Israeli intelligence charged that Iran was resupplying the Shiite movement via Turkey. Such claims gained credibility in May 2007, when a train derailed by PKK terrorists in southeastern Turkey was found to be carrying undeclared Iranian rockets and small arms destined for Syria—possibly for transshipment to Hezbollah.

Existing UN and EU legal guidelines provide the authority to take action against Iran weapons smuggling, but on their own are insufficient. In February and April 2007, the EU imposed a number of sanctions on Iran in order to implement UN Security Council decisions, including a ban on Iranian transfers of military materiel, arms, and missile technology. Similarly, Resolution 1747, adopted in March 2007, prohibited the transfer of “any arms or related materiel” by Iran, and urged UN member states not to facilitate such efforts. In addition, Resolution 1803, passed in March 2008, calls upon all states, “in accordance with their national legal authorities and legislation and consistent with international law,” to inspect IRISL cargoes to and from Iran transiting their airports and seaports,” provided there are reasonable grounds to believe that the aircraft or vessel is transporting [prohibited] goods.”

Getting countries to act on these authorities, however, has been sketchy at best. As these cases indicate, serious gaps exist in the available policy tools to deal with Iranian arms transfers to its allies and surrogates. To close these gaps, the United States should work with its allies on multiple levels.

For example, the EU could expand its current policy banning the sale or transfer of arms to Iran to include a ban on the purchase or transfer of arms from Iran. Indeed, only the latter actually address the export of arms. Individual countries and regional organizations both—especially in South America and South and East Asia—should adopt legislation pertaining to Iranian arms and technology transfers, to enable them to fulfill their UN and EU obligations.

Government engagement with the private sector, drawing attention to the risk of doing business with IRISL, its subsidiaries, and other banned entities, could also have a significant impact. As the U.S. Treasury noted when it designated IRISL: “Countries and firms, including customers, business partners, and maritime insurers doing business with IRISL, may be unwittingly helping the shipping line facilitate Iran’s proliferation activities.” Since then, Dutch Customs automatically label merchandise shipped by IRISL or Iran Air at the highest risk category and inspect the cargo. Last month, the United Kingdom also sanctioned IRISL, banning British firms from doing business with the Iranian shipping line.

Given Iran’s history of deceptive financial and trade activity, extra scrutiny should be given to any ship that has recently paid a call to an Iranian port. Countries should be encouraged to require ports and/or authorities to collect detailed, accurate, and complete data regarding all cargo being shipped to or through their countries (especially from risk-prone jurisdictions like Iran), to conduct rigorous risk assessments, and to proceed with actual inspections as necessary. According to press reports, the Francop docked in Egypt before it was boarded some 180 kilometers of the coast of Cyprus.

Recent events show that even as the Obama administration seeks to engage Tehran, the Islamic Republic has continued to work to undermine Western interests and to support anti-Western elements around the world, as demonstrated by its ongoing efforts to resupply Hamas and Hezbollah and assist insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Disrupting Iran’s ability to arm allies and surrogates hostile to the interests of the United States and its allies would enhance Washington’s leverage in possible negotiations with Tehran, contain Iran should such diplomatic efforts fail, and prevent Iran from contributing to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East and beyond.

In many arenas of conflict, especially in the Middle East, military forces deliberately fight from zones of civilian habitation. They routinely use as staging areas places that, traditionally, are off-limits to military responses or other actions: hospitals, schools and mosques. These forces also routinely make sure that civilians are in the area from which they are firing their rockets or other weapons—either by inviting those civilians to be there or forcing them to be there—in order to protect themselves from return fire by armies that are reluctant to hurt civilians. These military forces understand that the media war is often immensely more important than the ground war, and that photos of attacks on hospitals, holy places or schools, attacks on fighters dressed as civilians and especially attacks on actual civilians provoke worldwide condemnation and mobilize widespread sympathy for the enemy cause. No traditional military forces or coalition of forces—not U.S. forces, not NATO forces and not Israeli forces—have managed to find a way to cope with this now-common form of warfare.

Dowty notes the damage caused to Israel by that country’s decision to not cooperate with the Goldstone investigation. He refers to the comments by a number of Israeli jurists who have also felt that Israel should have cooperated with the investigation and should have provided the kind of testimony and evidence that Ambassador Dore Gold presented in his debate with Richard Goldstone at Brandeis University on November 5—evidence that, in the debate, Goldstone said he regretted not having seen.

So should Israel have cooperated with the Goldstone investigation?

I don’t think the answer is so simple. If one looks at it as some Israeli officials looked at it at the time the investigation was launched, it’s not surprising that they decided to boycott it. The UN Human Rights Council, and the United Nations itself, has shown itself to be implacably focused on using every opportunity to batter Israel. It doesn’t fail to condemn that country even as it ignores massive violations of human rights by other countries, including the members of the Council itself. The outcome seemed inevitable, and probably was. Richard Goldstone is, no doubt, a decent and honest person, but he was, in my judgment, either naïve or foolishly over-confident when he seems to have convinced himself that he could carry out an investigation or issue a report that would not become, inevitably, a political cudgel against Israel.

In retrospect, however, the Goldstone report—and the uses to which it has been put and will continue to be put—has done so much damage to Israel that my sense is that Israel should have cooperated with it despite the inevitable outcome. I don’t think the result, in terms of public opprobrium, would have been worse—and, in this case, might have been better.

The larger question, I think, has to do with future repetitions of this kind situation. It will surely happen again. It happened when Israel fought Hezbollah in Lebanon, which fired rockets from schools and other civilian zones, and stored them there—and, should it fight another war with Israel, will do so again. And it happens in other theaters of fighting in the Middle East, including Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, where it’s not Israel that has to decide how to contend with this problem but other powers.

Should such forces—American, NATO, Israeli—cooperate with investigations of such incidents, even if the investigation is almost certain, for political reasons, to find them guilty? No situation repeats itself exactly. The next time it won’t be Richard Goldstone but someone else who will head the investigation. The certainty of an unjust outcome may be even greater. Still, I suspect that it would be best to cooperate—even as it continues to be necessary to fight an enemy part of whose military strategy is to hide behind civilian shields. This is indeed the new face of war, and countries, even as they do everything possible to limit civilian casualties to a minimum, must find ways of defending themselves, their interests and especially their citizens.

In his November 5 debate with Dore Gold, Richard Goldstone seemed at a loss as to what would have constituted a “proportionate” response on the part of Israel. The definition of “proportionality” he had in mind seemed to make no sense in military terms. If a country, confronted with the challenge of this kind of warfare, concludes that it just can’t fight, then that country will be unable to defend itself. In the case of Israel, such a decision would result in its destruction. It, and other countries facing this dilemma, will have to devise, in response to this new face of war, a new way of dealing with it—one that enables it to defend itself even as it minimizes, to the extent possible, civilian casualties.

Walter Reich is a member of MESH.

As MESH approaches its second anniversary, we seek foundation support to allow us to continue our work and expand in new directions. Interested? Please contact us. And if you have ties to a foundation, please recommend MESH.

The tragic killing of the 13 U.S. soldiers in Fort Hood by Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is one is a string of events involving Muslim soldiers and veterans who have gone astray, raising delicate questions about the role and trustworthiness of the 3,000 Muslim soldiers in the U.S. military. The major incidents include the March 2003 attack in Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait by an American Muslim soldier, Asan Akbar, who rolled grenades into three tents where officers of the 101st Airborne’s 1st Brigade were sleeping, killing one serviceman and wounding 15; the six Islamic radicals who in May 2007 plotted to storm New Jersey’s Fort Dix Army Base with automatic weapons and execute as many soldiers as possible; and John Allen Muhammad, the Beltway Sniper, a Gulf War veteran and convert to Islam who was responsible for 16 shootings and 10 murders and who is scheduled to be executed today.

It would be inappropriate to malign or even question the loyalty of the hard-working Muslim men and women wearing the uniforms of the United States. But it would be equally irresponsible to ignore the amassing evidence that subversive and combustible elements with radical Islamic persuasion have infiltrated our military, often putting our personnel at bigger risk in their own bases than from their enemies on the battlefield.

While Muslim soldiers have served in uniforms loyally for decades, it is the rising number of Wahhabi-trained and converted Muslims that is a relatively recent phenomenon. Since Wahhabism is one of the most radical and puritan strands of Islam, the penetration of Wahhabi thinking into the ranks of the military must be treated with care.

The genesis of radical Islamic thinking within the military was in the 1990-91 Gulf War, when nearly half a million soldiers and marines were deployed in Saudi Arabia to liberate Kuwait and defend the oil kingdom from Saddam Hussein’s aggression. While the Saudis were adamantly opposed to any expression of religious practice by their guests, including a ban on Christmas carols, bible classes and Christian and Jewish prayers, they embarked on a well-orchestrated and generously funded effort sponsored by the Saudi government to convert as many American military members as possible to Islam.

According to General Norman Schwarzkopf’s aide Rick Francona,

Saudi officers appeared to have been directed by their senior military or religious leadership to spot and assess potential converts to Islam among American military members. Once a particular American was ‘targeted,’ […] a few Saudi military officers, including a military imam, would attempt to meet the American in either a purely social setting or at least outside of the work area. These approaches usually included fairly generous gifts and of course, literature about Islam. The gifts included expensive briefcases, pens, books and other personal items. Americans who decided to convert to Islam were rewarded handsomely […] including all expenses paid trips to Mecca, and payments as high as $30,000.

The commander of Saudi forces in the Gulf, Prince Khaled bin Sultan bragged in his memoir that more than 2,000 American troops converted to Islam through this campaign. “These Muslim troops are now the messengers of Islam in the U.S. forces,” said Dr. Abu Ameena Bilal Phillips, a Jamaican-born convert to Islam (1972) who worked during the Gulf war under the auspices of the U.S. Air Force while converting U.S. troops to Islam in his spare time. After the war, Phillips moved to the United States to “set up Islamic chapters in the U.S. Defense Department.”

Nearly two decades have passed since the Saudi conversion campaign, and most of the converts may no longer be in uniforms. But the seeds sown during the Gulf War have germinated, creating scores of radicalized Americans who are a threat to their comrades in uniforms as well as to their civilian communities.

Fort Hood’s Hasan yelled “Allahu Akbar“—Arabic for “God is Great”—just before the shooting. As Camp Pennsylvania’s killer Akbar was being led away after the incident, fellow soldiers heard him shout: “You guys are coming into our countries and you’re going to rape our women and kill our children.” Allahu Akbar, “you guys,” “our countries”—strong words which tell us that it is time to investigate what exactly happened back then in the desert and assess how serious and deep-rooted the damage is.

In any administration, policy is people and Tamara Cofman Wittes personifies this particular job. Redefining a policy that can work to advance U.S. interests while reshaping programs to support it will require thoughtfulness, tenacity, creativity and bureaucratic smarts. Thankfully, each of these Tamara has in abundance.

So let me join my fellow MESHers in wishing you all success and reminding you, as Rob Satloff did above, that we’re here for you if you need a sounding board.

J. Scott Carpenter is a member of MESH.

Michele Dunne is a member of MESH.

Robert Satloff is a member of MESH.

Stephen Peter Rosen and Martin Kramer are the co-conveners of MESH.

This will be my last post on MESH for the foreseeable future. On Monday I will take up new responsibilities that will take me away from the wonderful discussion that unfolds on this page. I’ll be serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, with specific policy responsibilities that include democracy and human rights (and, yes, the Middle East Partnership Initiative) along with public diplomacy.

MESH has done what some thought impossible: built a successful and well-read group blog on Middle East affairs, one that produces a sustained, relatively unpoliticized, thoughtful, and empirically grounded discussion among academics and policy analysts on the politics of the contemporary Middle East. I’ll admit that, at the start, I was skeptical about the project Stephen Peter Rosen and Martin Kramer proposed—but they convinced me to give it a try, and they, along with my excellent colleagues on this blog, have built a rich conversation that brings together multiple perspectives and disciplines in a way that is always fresh, and very often truly enlightening, even for experts in many regional policy topics. I have learned a lot here, and for that I am grateful to Stephen, Martin, and all my smart and dedicated fellow MESH members.

The associated paper series, conferences, and other activities have built on the value of this unique forum and demonstrated the payoff from continued dialogue between the ivory tower and those inside the Beltway over Middle East policy. That’s a lesson I’ll certainly bring with me into the State Department, and I look forward to reading and learning from my MESH colleagues in the months and years to come.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

Iranian regime goals of Islamic and Shia domination are not secret; these are the explicit raison d’être of the regime, not to be negotiated away to build “confidence” and a “more prosperous and productive relationship with the international community.”

On the basis of a study of thousands of Iranian statements over most of revolutionary Iran’s existence, a book I coauthored, What Makes Tehran Tick: Islamist Ideology and Hegemonic Interests, provides evidence to support Salzman about the central role of ideological aims for Tehran and its pursuit of hegemonic interests.

We conclude that ideology is a driving force in the Iranian regime’s decision making and makes American-style carrot-and-stick diplomacy unlikely to succeed. The nature of the regime in Tehran is important because it explains why the Iranian leadership perpetually seeks to confront Israel and the United States despite deterrent threats from both and offers to cooperate from Washington. Threats and promises have little effect on a regime whose leaders perceive the very existence of those two nations as a danger to continuation of their theocratic regime. Our study finds that the Islamic Republic perceives itself as engaged in two struggles: one for leadership of the Islamic world and the other a clash of civilizations with Western values of democratization, secularization, and globalization as embodied by Israel and the United States.

In addition to considering Israel as part of the West and thus a regime threat, quest for leadership in the Islamic world may be responsible for vitriolic rhetoric toward the Jewish State. There is no historical reason why Persians should engage in antagonistic behavior toward Jews, such as President Ahmadinejad’s appointment of a leading holocaust denier as deputy culture minister for media affairs in the Iranian cabinet. And because of the perceived ideological confrontation with the West, it is not surprising that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei spoke so harshly about the United States in a speech in which he characterized as “arrogant” the American attitude toward nuclear talks.

The bottom line is that Salzman is correct about the key role of ideology in Iran. Those who view the Islamic Republic as a normal state with which we can do business are unlikely to succeed because of the ideological nature of the regime.

Raymond Tanter is a member of MESH.

“It is time for the Iranian government to decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity, and justice for its people.”

—President Barack Obama, statement on the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, November 4, 2009

The assumption represented by the fresh statement by President Obama on Iran is that all people and peoples are the same: at heart, all people and peoples basically want the same things, basically understand the world in the same way, basically are prepared to come to terms in the same way as everyone else. This is particularly clear in the assertion that what the people of Iran seek is “universal rights.” Such a culture-free world as envisioned in this statement would make communication and agreement a lot easier. The reality, however, is that cultures do differ, and that people and peoples do not see life and existence the same way, and may disagree on goals. Iranian regime goals of Islamic and Shia domination are not secret; these are the explicit raison d’etre of the regime, not to be negotiated away to build “confidence” and a “more prosperous and productive relationship with the international community.”

Similarly this statement appears to assume that there are not real conflicts of interest between countries, or between the regimes running those countries. In this view, disagreements are basically misunderstandings, which, with good will and open communication, can be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. But power, control, and honor are gained and held only at the expense of other parties. There are winners and losers. Regimes wishing to improve their positions cannot do so by compromising with other parties. Furthermore, it is notoriously necessary in Middle Eastern despotic regimes to control the populace through confrontations with external enemies, real, imagined, or manufactured. Improving relationships with identified “enemies” is not in their interests and not on their agendas.

Finally, what good does it do to acknowledge the “powerful calls for justice” of the Iranian people when you are about to throw them under the bus by trying to make deals with the regime that is shooting them down in the street, torturing them in prisons, and executing them?

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

As President Obama decides how to proceed in the Afghan war, he needs to add one more variable that is rarely mentioned: Iranian determination to acquire nuclear weapons. An ongoing Afghanistan campaign means that resort to force against Iran would be tantamount to starting a second war. The politics being what they are, that will knock the military option against Iran off the table, with negative implications for an empowered diplomacy toward Iran.

Consider the timelines of the Afghan and Iranian policy portfolios, as President Obama must. Whether or not Iran parts with some of its fissile material in coming months in accord with the recent Geneva deal, it will still have enough nuclear “stuff” for one at least bomb within 18 months. (It may have more than that if, as looks increasingly likely, the recent Qom revelation displayed the tail end of a significant and protracted effort.) It will probably have overcome its weaponization and delivery-system challenges within 36-48 months. In 36-48 months U.S. and NATO forces will probably still be fighting in Afghanistan, whether Obama decides on a minimalist, counterterrorism-plus approach or General Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency-minus one.

The logic and overlapping timetables of the Afghan-Iran linkage suggest a need to choose. How should we think about that choice?

Both problems are consequential, but an Iranian nuclear breakout poses more serious long-term security dangers to the region and to the United States than any likely fallout from the Afghan war. Losing in Afghanistan could boost the morale of Islamist extremists worldwide, harm NATO and possibly exacerbate the situation in Pakistan. But acquiescing to an Iranian nuclear capability would spell the collapse of the Non-Proliferation Treaty regime and likely set off a proliferation race in and around the region that could catalyze a regional nuclear war. Unlike the Cold War deterrence relationship many of us remember, which involved just two sides with mostly secure weapons and command-and-control systems, a multifaceted nuclear Middle East without stable second-strike arsenals would be extremely crisis unstable and accident-prone, and could “leak” dangerous materiel to terrorists, as well. It is facile to assert that a deterrence relationship which worked in one context will also work in others; that assumption with respect to Iran is a textbook example of the “lesser-included case” fallacy.

If American interests require the prevention of an Iranian bomb, then major combat operations in Afghanistan must end before the moment to decide on Iran is at hand. That’s not the track we’re now on. General McChrystal’s plan is a stop-loss effort that cannot achieve a level playing field upon which to drive a new Afghan diplomacy, let alone achieve anything remotely resembling victory in three years or less.

There are only two alternatives to preserve a credible military option, and hence a credible diplomacy, with regard to Iran: accept defeat in Afghanistan, whatever we may call it, and leave; or surge militarily to reverse the perception of Taliban ascendancy, and then drive a new political arrangement there to end the war within the next 18-24 months.

Either option is preferable to a protracted and inconclusive bloodletting, but the latter option—depending more on air power and avoiding the massive (and counterproductive) garrisoning of the country with foreign forces—is preferable. It would avoid the optic of defeat. A new Afghan coalition government, blessed by a Loya Jirga within and supported by high-level contact-group diplomacy from without, would have at least a chance of creating a stable environment over the longer run—something that cannot reliably be said about the current regime in Kabul.

A success in Afghanistan also would lift the admittedly modest prospects that diplomacy can persuade the Iranians to step back from the nuclear precipice, just as failure to turn the tide would likely tempt them forward. And if the Iranians do not step back, a success in Afghanistan will better undergird the diplomacy that must accompany any military operation directed toward them.

Clearly, however, no McChrystal-plus option is on the table. This suggests that, barring some major out-of-the-blue event, like the collapse of the Iranian regime, the administration will be unable to consider using force against Iran when the time comes to decide, even if it might wish to do so. And Tehran’s knowledge that all U.S. military options are off the table is not liable to be helpful.

If U.S. policy eventually founders in Afghanistan and fails to prevent an Iranian nuclear breakout, and Iraq’s relative stability begins to crumble—not a far-fetched possibility, regrettably—then we will face a trifecta of real trouble in the Muslim world and beyond. To avoid that debacle, the beginning of wisdom is to recognize that when President Obama finally decides on Afghanistan, he will be constraining or expanding his options on Iran.

One wonders whether this link is well appreciated.

There are, of course, many Russified Muslims in Russia. As I tell my students, a typical Muslim one encounters in Russia and Central Asia is a Tolstoy-reading, vodka-drinking, mini-skirt wearing young lady who is deeply frightened by the prospect of Islamic fundamentalism and who regards Russia as a branch of Western civilization which offers her both protection and opportunity. The rising xenophobia inside Russia, however, is alienating many Russian Muslims as well as those who come to work there from Central Asia. Outsourcing Chechnya to the Kadyrov clan—former rebels who have imposed their own thuggish version of Islamic law and who increasingly appear to see Moscow as dependent on them and not vice versa—is hardly a recipe for stability.

Moscow’s willingness earlier this year to allow the United States to ship weapons across Russia to Afghanistan indicates that the Kremlin understands that if the United States fails in Afghanistan, it is Russian-backed regimes in Central Asia and Russia itself that will suffer most from a resurgent Taliban. But even if the United States increases its commitment to Afghanistan and successfully pushes back against the Taliban, this will not do much of anything to salvage the deteriorating security situation that Moscow faces in the North Caucasus.

A large part of Moscow’s problem in dealing with the North Caucasus relates to Laqueur’s observation about Russia being obsessed with imaginary dangers and neglecting real ones. To even acknowledge that Russia is facing an increasingly serious challenge in the North Caucasus would require acknowledging that Russia has not reemerged as the great power that the Kremlin loudly proclaims it to be. A logical consequence of acknowledging the seriousness of the threat in the North Caucasus would also require Moscow to acknowledge that it needs help from America and other nations—badly—in order to counter it. While doing this might actually enhance Russian security, it would also deeply undercut the image of Russia as a great power that the Kremlin has sought to project abroad, at home, and—not least—to itself. This something that the Putin/Medvedev “leadership” may not just be unwilling, but actually unable to do.

Mark N. Katz is a member of MESH.

As the Goldstone report on the Gaza war wends it way up the UN food chain, casting further opprobrium on Israel at each level, it is legitimate to question Israel’s handling of this challenge. Did the Israeli response lessen or aggravate the damage?

There are serious critiques that could have been levied against Goldstone’s mandate even before a single accusation was heard. UN investigations of wars, including this one, typically focus on jus in bello, on the laws of war on the battlefield, and ignore jus ad bellum, the justification for going to war in the first place. It can be argued with great cogency that it is unreasonable to judge the conduct of a war with little or no reference to its causes; echoes of this can be heard in Israeli complaints about the lack of attention to claims of self-defense.

A second critique is that international law has not kept pace with changes in warfare. Most contemporary armed conflicts involve what Rupert Smith has called “war amongst the people,” rather than classic set-piece battlefield scenarios from which laws on wartime conduct (jus in bello) were drawn. These laws seek, quite rightly, to minimize casualties among civilians, but how should they be applied when the very blurring of the military-civilian distinction is a basic strategic axiom of one party? Are insurgents entitled to more rather than less immunity if they refuse to wear uniforms (as required by conventional law)?

So Goldstone’s approach was already blinkered by the framework in which he, without audible complaint, was thrust. This was then compounded by the lack of an Israeli defense to the specific accusations that were brought. Having no “official” explanation that needed to be taken into account, as a straight-laced jurist he then not only accepted any claims of atrocities at face value but also attributed them to deliberate policy rather than the mistakes, negligence, and misconduct out of which most wartime violations are compounded.

Ruth Lapidoth, who has represented Israel in many international legal frameworks, and other leading Israeli jurists have argued that it was a mistake to leave Israel unrepresented in the presentation of evidence and argument before Goldstone. It may be that the final product would still not have been to Israel’s liking, but presenting one’s case in full force would make it more difficult to ignore the basic limitations of the framework (lack of attention to causes, unconventional warfare) and to assign to deliberate policy what could be attributed, in “the fog of war,” to deviations from the rules of engagement that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) had in fact set out.

A second effective means of damage control would be to address forthrightly the specific cases in the Goldstone report and to draw the necessary conclusions: a clear statement of the facts if the accusation is not warranted, and appropriate disciplinary action if it is. In fact, in international law, taking this step would remove the threat of prosecution abroad that now appears to hang over the head of top-level Israeli military commanders. The army that can fight a bloody conflict in an urban setting, without any cases of misconduct among its ranks, has yet to be created.

According to recent report, it was Defense Minister Ehud Barak who prevailed on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to boycott the UN inquiry. If so, it is further testimony to Barak’s inability to learn from experience, and it comes as no surprise that the latest poll predicts that, if elections were held now, his Labor Party, once the dominant force in Israel, would be reduced to an abysmal seven seats.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

The role of Iran in fueling insurgency in Iraq, particularly attacks against U.S. forces, has been well-documented and forms one front in Iran’s proxy war against the United States. Receiving much less attention than Iraq, is the role Iran has played in supporting anti-NATO insurgents in Afghanistan as a second front against U.S. and NATO forces.

At first blush, such support seems bizarre given the intense antagonism between radical Shiites in Tehran and the fringe Sunni Taliban movement, each of which sees the other as lying outside the bounds of true Islam. Indeed, the two were at odds throughout the 1990s, at times approaching what some considered a full-blow regional crisis. Late 1998 saw the Taliban murder of hundreds of Shiites in Mazar-e-Sharif and an Iranian buildup of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps troops along the border with Afghanistan.

By 2000, however, the Taliban had dispatched an emissary charged with reaching out to the Iranian regime, Khirullah Said Wali Khairkhwa. Cooperation, even with ideological enemies, fits with Tehran’s pattern of willingness to work with any ally to oppose the United States. (Iranian regime support for Al Qaeda in Iraq is part of this trend.)

During a January 2000 meeting in Iran, its representatives offered weapons assistance in light of the Taliban’s inability to procure weapons on the open market; and at a November 2001 meeting, Iranian diplomats offered anti-aircraft weaponry to the Taliban for use in impending action with the United States and NATO and offered safe passage of fighters, weapons, and money across the Iran-Afghanistan border.

Direct Iranian government assistance to the Taliban was first alleged by U.S. officials during 2007. In January of that year, Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns alleged that “There’s irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this and it’s a pattern of activity.… It’s certainly coming from the government of Iran. It’s coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps command, which is a basic unit of the Iranian government.”

A 2007 Treasury Department Fact Sheet identifies the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Qods Force as Tehran’s main vehicle for providing the Taliban with financial and weapons support. Secretary Gates has argued that the quantity of materiel proffered to the Taliban from Iran requires senior Iranian government involvement. Such support, even if not directly ordered by senior political leadership in Tehran, is certainly known of and allowed to continue unabated.

The same Explosively-Formed Penetrator IEDs Iran ships to Iraq are turning up in western Afghanistan, a previously quiet area compared to the eastern border with Pakistan. There have been 15 U.S. deaths in western Afghanistan in the last five months. One Taliban commander told BBC News in mid-2008 that Iranian businessmen sell Explosively Formed Penetrators, called “Dragons,” at a premium price to select Taliban commanders. In addition to businessmen who sell the weapons, the Taliban commander added that “There are people inside the state in Iran who donate weapons.” The Afghan press is reporting in October 2009 that Afghan security forces confiscated 860 Iranian-made land mines in northern Afghanistan. Tehran is also escalating by sending shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles to Afghanistan, which would greatly complicate NATO operations.

General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, alleges in his September report to the White House that in addition to supplying weapons, “The Iranian Quds Force is reportedly training fighters for certain Taliban groups.”

As U.S. forces gradually shift from Iraq to Afghanistan, Tehran likely sees the opportunity to bog down the American military in a way it was unable to do in Iraq. Such an analysis accords with American assessments that see the U.S. position in Afghanistan as tenuous at best.

The Permanent Five members of the UN Security Council (P5+1) initiative to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and use maximum leverage to do so, diminishes the ability of NATO countries to use diplomacy to discourage Iranian support for the Taliban. Success against Iranian infiltration in Afghanistan will almost definitely require changing the security environment on the Afghanistan side of the border, rather than transforming the behavior of Tehran on the Iranian side of the border.

As President Obama weighs General McChrystal’s request for some 40,000 additional troops to execute a population protection counterinsurgency strategy, it is important to bear in mind that with external support from the likes of Tehran, the Taliban is unlikely to be defeated by anything less than rejection by the Afghan people themselves. To this end, the United States may be well-advised to seek support of members of Pashtun tribes that have formed alliances of convenience with the Taliban. A counterinsurgency strategy with enough U.S. forces to win the trust of locals by providing security will be essential to allow the American military to wean some of the Taliban’s tribal Pashtun allies away from the insurgency.

To be fair, Hala’s colleagues within the Journalists’ Syndicate are not whipping up outrage over nothing. To many in Egypt, the peace with Israel is shameful because it is a separate peace, having abandoned the Palestinians to fend for themselves in what is anything but a fair fight against the mighty IDF and the resources of the state of Israel. Over the course of the 30 years since Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin inked the peace treaty, Israel invaded Lebanon (a couple of times), poured hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers into the West Bank and Gaza Strip (until the withdrawal from the latter in 2005), imprisoned tens of thousands of Palestinians (including women and children), and killed untold numbers. All the while, Egyptian sat on the sidelines and did very little other than “strongly condemn” or “refer to the United Nations,” while continuing to host Israeli leaders in Cairo or Sharm el Sheikh. When President Hosni Mubarak recalled his longtime ambassador to Israel, Mohammed Bassiouny, in protest over Israel’s handling of the al-Aqsa Intifada it was a big deal, but the peace treaty was never in jeopardy.

Yet, even if we stipulate that Egyptians have every right to hate Israelis, shouldn’t it be up to Hala to decide whom she entertains in her office? I don’t hold a brief for Hala. I know her, but not well. I’ve written about her journal in Foreign Policy’s “Global Newsstand.” I have heard her say some wacky things like her call for secularization of the Arab world along the lines of Mustafa Kemal’s reforms in Turkey in the 1920s, but we’ve all written and said things that weren’t necessarily analytically sound. My point is, regardless of how one feels about Hala and her work, there is a principle here. The journalists and writers who have attacked Hala are, I am told, at the forefront of agitating for personal and political freedom in Egypt. Yet, in enforcing a code of “no normalization,” they are in effect doing the bidding of a regime they ostensibly revile. They may not like what she has done, but whether she meets with Shalom Cohen, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Yossi Bellin, Tzip Livni or Zohan Dvir should be left to Hala’s professional judgment and her own conscience.

Of course, being perceived to play into the regime’s double game on Israel is no doubt not a reason for Egypt’s intellectuals to meet with Israelis. After all, many who support democracy in Egypt believe that a government more responsive to its citizens will be better equipped to resist the predatory policies of Israel and the United States. Still, this boycott thing seems to have gone a bit beyond reason. Writing in al-Masri al-Yawm, Ammar Ali Hassan called Hala’s meeting with Ambassador Cohen “a crime.” Others have been equally nasty and overwrought in their condemnations of Hala. It’s all a bit over the top.

The whole sad episode is rather revealing of the state of journalism in Egypt and, as Fouad Ajami might say, of “Egypt’s men and women of letters.” To be sure, there have been some bright spots in the last five years or so. The launch of al-Masri al-Yawm in 2004, despite Ammar Ali Hassan’s diatribe referenced above, the work of al-Dustur and a variety of other publications, as well as the hard work of any number of bloggers have successfully altered the prevailing political discourse in Egypt in a variety of positive ways. For example, despite the regime’s effort to embed their notions of “stability and development” in the Egyptian population, many are focused on reform and change instead, thanks in part to Egypt’s journalists.

That said, there is a sense that the Egyptian media is falling behind it peers elsewhere in the region. Whereas al-Ahram (which Lebanese Christians founded) and other Egyptian publications once were serious publications, they are now for the most part tendentious, predictable, and entirely uninteresting. Much of this, of course, has to do with the authoritarian political system in which Egypt’s journalists must operate, but the fault does not lie entirely with President Mubarak and his colleagues.

A number of years ago, the State Department dragooned me into a two-week tour of Egypt and Saudi Arabia to discuss U.S. Middle East policy. I did the rounds in Cairo and then headed off to Jeddah, Riyadh, and Dhahran. Somewhere along the way I came to a stunning conclusion: The Saudi journalists, writers, and academics seemed far more sophisticated, worldly, well-read, and willing to wrestle with alternative ideas than the Egyptians. I got my fair share of Saudi conspiracy mongering about the “Jewish lobby” and how Washington wanted to replace Saudi Arabia with Iran as its primary interlocutor in the Gulf, but I was on the receiving end of similar ideas and much more in Cairo. The Saudis, like their Egyptian counterparts, are forced to operate in an authoritarian environment, yet in comparison they seem enlightened. After Egyptian journalists and writers are finished devouring one of their own over a boycott that has done absolutely nothing to advance the Palestinian cause, they might want to investigate why collectively they have become little more than a second rate sideshow in a region bursting with journalistic activity.

Steven A. Cook is a member of MESH.

In a 2008 essay entitled “The Conundrum of Iran: Strengthening Moderates without Acquiescing to Belligerence,” Brennan wrote the following regarding Hezbollah:

It is similarly foolhardy to believe that Hezbollah will not remain a potent political force within Lebanon for many years to come, as the organization has strong support within the Lebanese Shia community and well-established political and social welfare credentials throughout the country. Hezbollah’s growing paramilitary strength and political and social resiliency were clearly demonstrated in 2006, when Israel showed a remarkable inability to inflict strategic damage on Hezbollah despite a major military campaign to do so.

It would not be foolhardy, however, for the United States to tolerate, and even to encourage, greater assimilation of Hezbollah into Lebanon’s political system, a process that is subject to Iranian influence. Hezbollah is already represented in the Lebanese parliament and its members have previously served in the Lebanese cabinet, reflections of Hezbollah’s interest in shaping Lebanon’s political future from within government institutions. This political involvement is a far cry from Hezbollah’s genesis as solely a terrorist organization dedicated to murder, kidnapping, and violence. Not coincidentally, the evolution of Hezbollah into a fully vested player in the Lebanese political system has been accompanied by a marked reduction in terrorist attacks carried out by the organization. The best hope for maintaining this trend and for reducing the influence of violent extremists within the organization—as well as the influence of extremist Iranian officials who view Hezbollah primarily as a pawn of Tehran—is to increase Hezbollah’s stake in Lebanon’s struggling democratic processes.

Because Israel views Hezbollah as a serious and lethal adversary, this will not be an easy sell. Washington will need to convince Israeli officials that they must abandon their aim of eliminating Hezbollah as a political force. This previously employed Israeli strategy did not work with the PLO and Fatah, and Israeli officials have adapted to the reality of engaging in political dialogue and negotiations with Palestinians formerly branded as “terrorists.” A similar change must take place within the minds of Israeli government officials in regard to Hezbollah. One way to help effect this change would be if Iran were willing to press Hezbollah to cease its attacks against civilian targets and to declare so publicly. While insufficient to satisfy many Israelis who view Hezbollah as a serious military threat, it would be a positive first step.

More recently, Brennan briefly made headlines for essentially reiterating this argument at a talk he gave at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in early August. Brennan’s comments came in response to a question by The Nation correspondent, Robert Dreyfuss, whether the United States should start talking to organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban. Brennan focused most on Hezbollah and painted a remarkable picture of the group:

Hezbollah started out as purely a terrorist organization back in the early ’80s and has evolved significantly over time. And now it has members of parliament, in the cabinet; there are lawyers, doctors, others who are part of the Hezbollah organization.

However, within Hezbollah, there’s still a terrorist core. And hopefully those elements within the Shia community in Lebanon and within Hezbollah at large—they’re going to continue to look at that extremist terrorist core as being something that is anathema to what, in fact, they’re trying to accomplish in terms of their aspirations about being part of the political process in Lebanon. And so, quite frankly, I’m pleased to see that a lot of Hezbollah individuals are in fact renouncing that type of terrorism and violence and are trying to participate in the political process in a very legitimate fashion.

Whether or not Brennan was the source for the Washington Post report, one can detect the similarity of the viewpoints that are evidently, as per the WaPo report, being raised by “some White House advisers.”

The main points of the argument are familiar to anyone who’s kept up with the scholarly literature on Hezbollah, especially the proponents of the so-called “Lebanonization” theory, chief among whom is Augustus Richard Norton. This view holds that Hezbollah has “evolved” from a terrorist group into a mainstream political party.

In order to sustain this argument, its proponents have often resorted to distancing Hezbollah from terrorist activity dating after its involvement in Lebanese politics, or, at the very least, minimizing it. This had been the norm in Hezbollah scholarship prior to the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh in February 2008.

Brennan does the same in his 2008 article, claiming rather remarkably, that “the evolution” of Hezbollah into a political player was simultaneous with “a marked reduction in terrorist attacks carried out by the organization.” Moreover, “increasing Hezbollah’s stake” in the Lebanese political process has had no effect on Hezbollah’s military operations, as evident form their involvement in Iraq, and Yemen, Egypt and Azerbaijan (as noted by Matt Levitt in his post).

However, what’s more problematic is the definition of “political participation.” Hezbollah has made a mockery of Lebanon’s constitution and parliamentary political traditions. Needless to say, the idea of a sectarian group with an arsenal that rivals that of an army, and with external foreign connections and networks, “participating in politics in a tightly balanced sectarian society” is itself an absurdity.

Furthermore, those who make this argument miss the point of Hezbollah’s political participation: it is precisely in order to protect its military autonomy. This was articulated by a Hezbollah spokesman in a 2007 interview with the International Crisis Group: “Paradoxically, some want us to get involved in the political process in order to neutralise us. In fact, we intend to get involved—but precisely in order to protect the strategic choice of resistance.”

Hezbollah has used its weapons in order to bend the political system to fit its agenda and has intimidated its political rivals by force of arms. As the author of the ICG report, Patrick Haenni, put it: “Hezbollah realized that they had [to be internally involved to a greater extent], but the issue was still to secure their weapons…. Hezbollah has a real interest in making the state part of its global project.”

The flawed understanding of the nature of Hezbollah has led people like Brennan to posit the existence of various “wings” in Hezbollah: “extremists” vs. “moderates” and those who supposedly “renounce terrorism” vs. those who support it. While this illusory categorization has not been translated into U.S. policy, it has, alas, become British policy. Ironically, Hezbollah officials have publicly mocked this kind of artificial dichotomies.

This fundamental misunderstanding of the group is captured in the wording of the Washington Post report, which described Hezbollah as “the armed Lebanese political movement.” That has it backwards. To quote Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh, Hezbollah is “first and foremost a jihadi movement that engages in politics, and not a political party that conducts jihad.” One must qualify that further by adding what Na’im Qassem wrote in his book, that the jurisprudent (al-wali al-faqih)—i.e., Iran’s Supreme Guide, Ali Khamenei—”alone possesses the authority to decide war and peace,” and matters of jihad. Therefore, in effect Hezbollah is a light infantry division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

That’s not the kind of model the US wants to see in Afghanistan.

Tony Badran is research fellow with the Center for Terrorism Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Perhaps we should consider whether the Pashtun tribes are a problem because they are Taliban, or whether the Taliban is a problem because of its support by Pashtun tribes. Correspondingly, rather than considering how we should deal with the Taliban, perhaps we should consider how we should deal with the Pashtun tribes.

The American military has had recent success in allying with once-insurgent Sunni tribes in Anbar province of Iraq, and other tribes elsewhere in Iraq. They did this, in part, by dealing directly with the tribes, rather than through the framework of the Iraqi government. There is a good reason that such direct ties were successful: tribes are by their nature not units of states, but alternatives to states; tribes detest interference, and strongly prefer independence to state control.

As long as the intervention in Afghanistan places state-building as its highest priority, tribes will naturally lean toward resistance. So what is more important: building a state apparatus, or stabilizing the region and removing threats to external parties? In the short- and medium-run, treating with the tribes may be the most effective way to stabilize and neutralize the region.

Philip Carl Salzman is a member of MESH.